Pain and pleasure? Margarete Petersen’s Nine of Cups

Nine of Cups (trimmed):
© Margarete Petersen Tarot

No traditional jolly-looking chap appears in Margarete Petersen’s version of the Nine of Cups! Instead we have a pearl in a shell, bathed in bright (sun?) light, possibly on a beach… the colours conjure up evening, for me  - the Cups correspondence with twilight-evening, perhaps. Pearls are metaphors for something rare, fine, admirable, and valuable – so I can see why Margarete Petersen has used this to represent the penultimate goal.  You’d think there was nothing more to gain after this, but it is the ‘almost but not quite’ idea.

In the accompanying book, Petersen talks about the pain involved in the process of reaching this goal: the pearl forms from a grain of sand embedding itself in the soft flesh of the mollusk, and the continuous pain the creature feels as its shell covers the grain of sand with calcium carbonate to create the pearl.  So it’s not all happy-happy in this version – there’s a need to accept the pain in order to truly appreciate the gift from the ‘depths of the ocean’ (i.e. from within ourselves, if we allow it to surface).

There is a connection to the Three, I feel. The Three of Cups shows three dancing people, seemingly free from any pain, but the Nine illuminates the deep joy that comes from having been through the darkness. 

Pearl rests in its shell

Born from pain, appreciate 
the gift from the depths.

Margarete Petersen Tarot, AGM-URANIA, 2004.

Rising from the depths: Margarete Petersen’s Eight of Cups

Today I’m playing with numbers. The number 8 is the result of 2 x 4. If I go with the idea of balance (2) and stability (4), that brings me to 8 being a safe haven after the ‘pull up your socks’ 7.  So for the Eight of Cups I tend towards the idea of needing to move away from the fantasies or day-dreams of the Seven into a more secure emotional state, leaving behind what no longer serves (which could be an unrealistic dream, for instance). 

Eight of Cups (trimmed): © Margarete Petersen Tarot

Margarete Petersen’s image bears little resemblance to any other version of this card that I’ve seen so far. It took some time, even with my magnifying glass, to work out that the ‘blob’ submerged in the deep blue sea is in fact an upside-down head. The stream of lighter blue emanating from it to the surface was a clue – air rising to the surface and on up into the atmosphere (as I see it!). I can’t make out what else might be down in the depths – perhaps it’s the rest of the figure’s body… Again, the idea of being trapped in the depths of something that feels out of our control, yet we find a way to breathe and draw in air from beyond the barrier that holds us in this ‘hemmed-in’ state/place. And if we don’t? Indolence, or a sense of stagnation, could set in.

Plunging into depth

Feelings rise to the surface; 
Boundaries will shift.


Margarete Petersen Tarot, AGM-URANIA, 2004.